Two brothers, 30 and 32 yrs. old, from Furth Germany have been sentenced to 4 yrs. imprisonment for drug related charges. Though their names were not made public by law enforcement agencies and the prosecution itself, according to published court documents they used darknet sites including Silk Road to order cannabis, ecstasy and bhang online. They resold the same drugs to random customers on the street, while also consuming a part of it themselves. Prosecutors mentioned that the duo traded in these illegal substances for approximately 2 yrs., between 2012 and 2014.

Court files show that the narcotics were delivered to their personal physical address in Furth. With an estimated weight value of 1800 grams amphetamine, 1700 grams cannabis, 120 ecstasy tablets and some amount of cocaine. During investigations, German authorities seized a package which they examined thoroughly at their Schleswig-Holstein station in early 2015. Thereafter, the older sibling who by that time was a teacher had his apartment searched by officers. This resulted in authorities arresting the suspect at his place of work.

A few months down the line his younger brother was also captured. They were both presented before Nuremberg-Furth’s 7th Criminal Court, and following their confession the magistrate sentenced them to 4 yrs. incarceration plus also arranged for their rehabilitation in a recovery center.

Silk Road is a currently defunct darknet site that was previously used to sell narcotics during its active days. It was run using a Tor hidden platform where users could browse anonymously without fear of being monitored by outsiders. The website was first opened in February 2011, though construction had begun 6 months earlier. Initially there were just but a handful of seller accounts on display, and new users had to buy an account through auction. However, later as Silk Road developed a fixed monetary sum was placed on each new retailer account.

The site was administered by Ross Ulbricht who went by the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts” or simply DPR; he championed libertarian ideals while criticizing internet regulation by authorities. Other than him, two other individuals known as Smedley and Variety Jones were closely involved in overseeing the Silk Road site’s growth and overall success.

Ulbricht was arrested in October 2013 by FBI agents after they discovered he owned Silk Road, the takedown happened in San Francisco at a public library named Glen Park. The man was convicted to 7 criminal charges in a Manhattan U.S. Federal Court, and given a life sentence without parole. Some of the charges prosecutors brought forward against DPR in court were money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic drugs and attempt to kill six people. They alleged that he paid $730,000 to assassins for the murders, though none of them actually occurred in real life. Ulbricht was not sentenced for any of the murder-for-hire claims.

From this Silk Road operation, cops seized about 26,000 bitcoins with an estimated value of $3.6 million. Moreover, during trial FBI announced that they will continue holding up the bitcoins until his case was finished, after which they would be officially liquidated. Much later during the case cops announced that they intercepted another 144,000 bitcoins belonging to DPR, with an estimated value of $28.5 million. Yet another $87 million worth of bitcoins was also found on Ross’ computer.

After his capture, the Silk Road trial on Ulbricht began on 13th Jan 2015 where he claimed to have opened the site, but later on transferred control to other personnel who took charge of operations. Ulbricht’s attorneys argued that the account name Dread Pirate Roberts was actually being run by a man named Mark Karpeles, and that it was Karpeles who used Ross as a fall guy. However, presiding judge Katherine Forrest ruled that those were mere speculations and prosecution would strictly be based on Silk Road evidence already with the court.

Even after official closure of the first Silk Road site, administrators announced on 6th November 2013 that they had opened another similar network named Silk Road 2.0, purportedly led by a new Dread Pirate Roberts. During its first few days, they recreated the predecessor’s original site setup and also promised enhanced security upgrades to prevent crackdown. But Silk Road 2.0 was also shut down in November 2014 as part of the “Operation Onymous.”

ANNOUNCEMENT: Well it has happened! Another Silkroad Darknet Market has spawned after the demise of Silkroad 2.0. The new site is called Silkroad Reloaded and is utilizing different technology than its predecessors therefore a new guide for Silkroad Reloaded will be coming soon. In the meantime Agora Marketplace is still alive and kicking bigger than ever with more listings than Silkroad 2.0.

In October 2013, the FBI took down the original Silkroad site and proclaimed a huge breakthrough against the darknet illegal markets. But, only months after the closure of Silkroad, the number of such sites was higher than ever. It is being reported that the takedown of the online illegal drug marketplace Silkroad has made it harder to track criminals on the Dark Web.

According to a report published by the Global Commission on Internet Governance, increased scrutiny on the Tor network and higher monitoring of the internet is making criminals more careful in hiding their tracks warned by the epic SilkRoad shutdown.

The seizure of Silkroad and the conviction of Silkroad mastermind, Ross Ulbricht, may make it harder for law enforcement agencies to track criminal activities on the dark web. These sites have operated with such indemnity for so long because their servers are running on non-standard protocols encrypting in and out of the website. That makes it extremely difficult to locate the servers physically, thereby making it hard to shut them down. Thus, these sites are having large amount of illegal drug market activities and transactions.

The authorities are trying to work out a way to bring these sites down. Those involved in the world of darknet will surely be attempting to figure out what happened already, what were the possible security flaws and how can they be patched up again. Thus, more darknet sites are re-appearing after Silkroad getting down, as the dark web experts began working out innovative ways to evade detection.

It would be to conclude that instead of putting a halt to the dark web activities, the Silkroad closure has led to a surprising acceleration of the same.

Disclaimer

This website is just a blog that delivers the latest news on the Silk Road and it's latest versions of the Darknet Markets with the same name. We are in no way connected with these or any other Darknet Marketplaces. The information here is just intended for informational use and is not meant to be used for advice in any way. We do not endorse the use of illegal drugs and do not encourage any illegal activities in any way.